Poll - # of Vaults and Auto-open

I pt together a document my wife keeps on her computer (and mine and backed up to Google Drive) that walks through everything including whats in the vault, but the short answer is no to all your questions (she would never remember anyway) since she does not use or need Cryptomator - I keep all the important stuff on my computer. She also has the password to open the vault stored in a password manager.

fyi - my vaults are also backed up to an external drive in addition to being in the cloud.

Safe deposit box is good, but I always worry they will lose the key, and without the key, they are up a creek.

If you don’t have the key, but are entitled to it (which, of course, must be settled beforehand), the bank will break open the lock. It costs a few euros, but you can get to it.

Not sure about that. Here, you’d have to hire an attorney and probably have to petition the court before a bank would give the person access. That delay may be ok for items that are not immediately needed upon a death (ie, family heirloom jewelry), but critical insurance, tax, legal documents are different.

it is a difficult problem, Blue_Sky’s answer, making a document and explaining in detail how vaults work, what is in the vaults and the unlock passwords, is a workable solution.
But you have to inform your kids about it, and possibly your daughter in law and or son in law, putting that document outside your direct control, outside your house.
A step further is SailReal’s solution, but for me that is too complicated.
Sorry for making it so complex, but in theory (and my case) lots of offical documents are in the vaults, so I am puzzling about this.
I do not want to give too many people access to the vaults (preferable only myself), but is a case of an emergency it should be accessable as simple as possible.

Allow me to elaborate:

Nobody besides myself and my wife has the vault password (or ever will) and it’s kept safe in a password manager app only the two of us can access. If I die, she still has access; if we both are gone, the executor of our estate has the password (but not the actual vault until after we are gone so he can settle our estate). The password itself means nothing until he can access the vault.

Even if you have kids, you wouldn’t want them to have access to your wills, etc. until after you die, and then it falls upon your executor, not them, to access the vault contents. One exception to that would be a living will/healthcare power of attorney which should NOT be locked up in a vault anyway.

so to summarize:
Executor - has the password but no clue where the vault is
Kids - they have access to your computer when gone, and Cryptomator app, but can’t unlock a vault because they don’t have the password
You still control everything until you’re both dead, then they get together and share what they have to access the vault.

Hi Blue_Sky,
a very clear explanation and interpretation of the problem and of the possible solutions, I can certainly apply parts of it to my situation, thanks for sharing it.